SPORTS stars from Coventry's rugby and ice hockey teams have been helping to spread the message of good hand hygiene.

Members of Coventry's Rugby football team and the Coventry Blaze ice hockey team joined the Infection Control team at Coventry Sports and Leisure Centre in Fairfax Street, Coventry to teach the public basic hand hygiene.

They gave practical demonstrations using ultraviolet light to show how to keep hands clean and infections down.

Infection control nurse Kate Prevc said: "Cleaning your hands is vitally important when people come to hospital so we can keep the spread of infections like MRSA down.

"Basic hand hygiene can, and should, be used at all times so that other infections like flu and colds and winter sickness bugs can be prevented from spreading in the community.

"By coming to a busy public venue I hope we can show people, in a fun way, the big differences something simple like washing your hands correctly can have.

"We want to explain what the risks are when you don't wash your hands."

Coventry RFC player Lee Parry said: "It's to show the benefit of cleaning your hands - there are a lot of sports players that don't do enough when it comes to washing their hands. It's usually just a quick job but we're learning just how important it really is."

Free colouring posters were given to children and mugs to adults after they were shown the correct way to clean their hands.